Rutland
Herald and Montpelier(Barre) Times ArgusSunday
March 4th, 2012

What
happens in the coming week could be decisive. Super Tuesday – when
ten states will hold presidential primary elections which might
settle the Republican presidential nomination? No, although that’s
what will get most of the news media attention. Actually, whether
America goes to war with Iran this year could well be determined
during the upcoming visit to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu
will of course be meeting with President Barack Obama. But the
Israeli leader already knows Obama’s position. That was made clear
in two high level missions Obama sent to Israel in recent weeks, the
first headed by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin
Dempsey with a follow- up by National Security Adviser Tom Donilon.
Apparently, the message was that the United States believes it is
premature to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities for the following
reasons:

1)
American Intelligence agencies collectively do not believe Iran has
irrevocably decided to build a nuclear weapon.

2)
Very tough sanctions are really starting to hurt Iran’s economy and
should be given more time to firmly take hold, raising prospects for
bringing Iran to the negotiating table.

3.)
A bombing campaign would only set the Iranian nuclear program back a
year or two at most. Meantime it would unify all Iranians including
the growing numbers who now oppose the regime.

4)
Any bombing attack on Iran could not be contained and would most
likely spread throughout the Persian Gulf and Middle East with
potentially dire political and economic consequences.

We
learned that General Dempsey also told the Israelis that if they went
ahead with a raid on Iran without consulting Washington in advance,
they should not expect America to come to their aid after the fact.
The Israelis appeared to answer that this past week. According to an
Associated Press report Israeli officials now say
they won't warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive
strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Frankly, while this issue
is not unimportant, as a practical matter if Israel attacks Iran it
will automatically be assumed by the rest of the world including
Iran, that America was complicit. And one cannot imagine that if Iran
then retaliates against Israel the American Congress and news media
would allow Obama to sit on the sidelines.

Which
brings me back to the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit, scheduled to
begin next Tuesday. I assume that Netanyahu does not expect to get
Obama’s green light to attack Iran. Rather, I think he plans to
effectively by-pass the president. He will personally make his case
that Israel can’t accept a nuclear Iran to members of the U.S.
Congress. He will highlight that argument in an address to the
conference of the pro Israel lobby, the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC). And he will speak directly to the American
people through a mostly sympathetic news media.

If
the Israeli leader has as much success as he’s had with a similar
approach on previous visits, Obama will find himself with even fewer
options in trying to avoid a disastrous war with Iran. One key
indicator of Netanyahu’s latest impact will be what happens to a
proposed Senate Resolution strongly encouraged by the
pro-Israel lobby. As described recently in the Jewish Daily Forward,
the resolution would shift America’s red line in dealing with Iran,
from preventing the Islamic Republic’s acquisition of nuclear
weapons, to stopping it before it achieves “nuclear capabilities.”
Opponents say the phrase “nuclear capabilities” is far too vague
and could be used right now as a reason to bomb Iran.

The
resolution also urges the president “to reaffirm the
unacceptability of an Iran with nuclear-weapons capability and oppose
any policy that would rely on containment as an option in response to
the Iranian nuclear threat.” That last part is very significant. By
ruling out the idea of “containment,” Israel and its supporters
in Congress want to eliminate a policy which was used successfully by
America from the early days of the Cold War.

Critics
of containment would have us believe that Iran is far worse, and far
more dangerous than the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin or Communist
China’s Chairman Mao. Arnaud De Borchgrave, once Newsweek’s chief
correspondent and now UPI editor at large, challenged that notion in
a recent commentary. He writes:

“There
are several generations of Americans and Israelis who have no
recollection of the game of nuclear chicken played by Russia and
China after World War II. In 1957, Mao Zedong said China could
survive and prevail in a nuclear war. Even if 200 million were killed
by American atomic weapons, Mao concluded, 400 million would survive
and China would still be a major power while the United States would
lose its reason for existing.….Stalin repeatedly threatened the
West with nuclear annihilation. Analysts at the time said Stalin
believed he could destroy the United States and inherit Europe
intact. For Stalin, 20 million people "purged" during his
bloody dictatorship was a statistic.”

As
I have written (several times) before, what ultimately made
containment work was MAD- mutual assured destruction. As it applies
to Iran, even without America’s nuclear deterrent Israel has
100-200 nuclear warheads and the means to deliver them – more than
enough to erase 4000 years of Persian civilization if Iran or its
surrogates were ever to use any form of nuclear weapon against
Israel. The Iranian theocracy has demonstrated evil intent but shows
no signs of wanting to commit total national suicide.

Recent
polls suggest a majority of Americans would support an Israeli strike
against Iran. But in Israel itself, a poll by the respected newspaper
Haaretz found Israelis equally divided over whether Iran is in fact a
threat to their existence. It is also worth repeating that three
former top Israeli intelligence and military heads have publicly
opposed a pre-emptive strike against Iran - for reasons quite similar
to the arguments raised (as noted above) by the Obama administration.